1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally concerns the sharing of revenue for the sales of prescription drugs, and more specifically, the invention relates to an interactive advertising/printing system in which profits for prescription drug sales can be shared between a drug manufacturer and a printer manufacturer. In more detail, the invention provides a system for a printer manufacturer to share in the profits for the sales of prescription drugs if a patient prints out a partial prescription via an interactive advertising/printing system that advertises the drug, has the prescription completed and validated by a doctor, and then has the prescription fulfilled by a pharmacy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, it has been known to provide a medical patient with a discount for medical supplies based on the patient's medical profile. One example of a conventional system has been described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/0050799 to Jay et al. (hereinafter referred to simply as “Jay”), entitled “Permission Based Marketing For Use With Medical Prescriptions”.
The system in Jay includes a “doctors side”, and an “industry side”. The industry side may include an employer database, a healthplan database, a PBM database, a pharmacy database, and an RxChange server, while the doctors side may include a PPM (Physician Practice Management Data Database), and other local network components such as printer, local server, PDA, etc. The industry side and the doctors side communicate via various internet components. The system of Jay maintains the patient's medical history and allows the doctor to print out prescriptions for the patient. Once the prescription is printed out by the doctor, the system can provide a list of pharmacies for the patient to visit in order to fulfill the prescription. The system of Jay also includes the ability to print out coupons or advertisements related to the medication prescribed by the doctor. Thus, while not explicitly disclosed in Jay, it is possible that the doctor, the pharmacy and the coupon vendor may be able to share in the profit for the sale of the medication, but there is no provision for the printer manufacturer to share in the profits.